Top 15 sports stories of 2016

2016 will be known in the sports world as the year of the underdog when the lesser teams in sports won titles against the odds.

Whether it be Leicester beating everyone in England to lift their first ever English Premier League title or Chicago over coming a 104-year MLB draught to win the world series, it was a year of upsets.

Even Australia had its own underdog teams win their competitions with both the Bulldogs in the AFL and the Sharks in the NRL overcoming long droughts to take home the flag for their fans.

We also had the Rio Olympics where swimmers dominated the headlines with Michael Phelps again proving he is the greatest Olympian of all time and Katie Ledecky conquering the women’s events.

With the highs we also saw the lows from the Australian rugby and cricket teams being embarrassed by their New Zealand and South African counterparts respectively to the passing of two all time greats of sport in Muhammed Ali and Arnold Palmer.

Simone Biles burst onto the global scene while Stephen Curry again proved he was the best shooter in the NBA.

Here is my top 15 sporting stories of 2016

Honourable mentions. Stephen Curry unanimous MVP, Andy Murray taking number 1, All Blacks upset by Ireland, Rio Olympics problems, Russian Doping scandal.

15 Denver Broncos take out the Super Bowl
The Denver Broncos overcame a Carolina Panthers side who steamrolled the competition for the most part of the NFL regular season. Led by MVP quarter back Cam Newton and the league’s best offense, the Broncos were coming in with the league’s best defence and a seasoned quarterback in Peyton Manning.

From the moment the game started the Panthers looked like a deer caught in the headlights. Newton was a shell of his regular season self and the much feared offense couldn’t get going.

Denver put on a defensive clinic and never trailed at any stage during the game eventually going on to win 24-10. With the win Peyton Manning would again prove his doubters wrong with another title and would later on announce his retirement from the NFL going down as an all time great.

14 Portugal wins Euro 2016
Portugal went into the Euro 2016 tournament with no international glory in their history and they didn’t look like that was going to change at all. Despite being in what was probably the easiest group Portugal did not win a single group stage instead drawing in every single clash.

Portugal continued that trend throughout the knockout phase drawing in two other matches before finally getting a regulation time win against Denmark and then again another against Wales.

In the final they would play the home team France. When Cristano Ronaldo went off the ground injured early in the game it looked like everything was falling in line for the French to take home the title.

Portugal though did what they had done all tournament and left it until after the 90 minutes to snatch a historic victory with an extra time goal from Eder.

13 Cronulla sharks win flag
When it comes to drought-breaking titles this year the Sharks unfortunately finish last on the scale, only needing to wait 49 years to win their first.

With everything the side has endured over the past few years being embroiled in the drug scandal it was well worth the wait for the Sharks faithful.

Facing the much more fancied Melbourne Storm the Sharks were given little chance to overcome the hoodoo and win the flag but a 70th-minute try from Andrew Fifita powered them to the win 14-12.

The Storm had more than enough time to overcome the deficit but the Sharks dug deep in defence stopping any chance the Storm had to win.

12 Western Bulldogs win flag
The boys from Footscray did what no one in the AFL expected them to do on their way to flag number two and their first since 1954, overcoming another fancied foe in the Sydney Swans 89-67.

The grand final as good as it was probably wasn’t the biggest win for the Dogs after they overcame the Hawthorn Hawks in week two of the finals, ending the Hawks chance at four straight flags – seemingly ending the dynasty that the Hawks had built up over the past four years.

After the Hawks win though the Dogs had to travel to Sydney to face another up and coming team in the Greater Western Sydney Giants but again the boys from the West proved to difficult for the newest AFL franchise and punching their trip to the MCG and the grand final.

Sydney were probably early favourites but after Lance Franklin injured his ankle early in the game the signs were pointing to a Bulldogs chance, Sydney continued to fight but the speed and game style of the Bulldogs was far too good for the Swans and they would again fall short.

11 Simone Biles
Simone Biles was already looking like a gymnastic legend in the making, the 19-year-old gymnast entering the 2016 season as the reigning national champion, but it was in Rio at the Olympics where she really shined.

Biles took home five medals from the games – including four golds, the most won by an American female gymnast in a single Olympics – and led the Final Five to their second consecutive team all-around gold medal, further cementing her position a one of the best ever gymnasts and still at just the ripe old age of 19.

10 End of an NBA era, Kobe, Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett retire
2016 saw the end of three of the greatest players to ever play the sport of basketball. Kobe Bryant the Lakers superstar and one of the greatest scorers in NBA history would use all of the 2015-16 NBA season as his retirement party.

After going through injury-plagued seasons in the years before Kobe decided this year was going to be it. Although he was clearly not the Kobe of old he still put on enough of a good performance to make fans remember just how good he was and how much he would be missed.

In his final game ever Kobe would score a season NBA high of 61 points against the Utah Jazz (we won’t discuss if he was guarded at all in this game though) on his home floor which was adorned with Kobe’s famous numbers 8 and 24.

Kobe went exactly how he arrived with a bang but there was someone out in Texas who also retired this year and in typical fashion for him it was very quietly. Tim Duncan was the exact opposite of Kobe Bryant.

The quiet fundamentally sound assassin, Duncan will be regarded as the best power forward in NBA history and has enough of a case to be a top ten candidate in anyone’s books.

He is a two-time MVP winner, three time playoff MVP winner and five time NBA champion Tim was crucial to the success of the San Antonio Spurs.

Kevin Garnett was nothing like Duncan but was on the other spectrum to Kobe Bryant as well. KG was the loudmouth trash talker that could do anything.

Coming into the NBA as a high schooler KG burst onto the scene for the Wolves and eventually won an MVP with them, however the team was never able to get over the hump that was the LA Lakers and the San Antonio Spurs in the early 2000s.

This is despite often being one of the best franchises they could only make one Western Conference finals, a trade to Boston in 2007 brought together the first of the new era big three joining forces with Ray Allen and Paul Pierce.

KG would finally get his chance at a ring when the Celtics would face the Lakers in the NBA finals, overcoming Kobe Bryant to win his first and only title in his career.

He would again face the Lakers as a Celtic for the title in 2009 but would fall short of the title. Garnett’s retirement was not like Kobe’s or Duncan’s in that it was embroiled in a bit of controversy with the Wolves.

9 Ledecky rules the pool
19-year-old American Katie Ledecky made more than a splash in her second Olympics in Rio. She crushed her own world records, won five medals and became the first woman to sweep the 200, 400 and 800 freestyle events in 48 years, and only the third U.S. woman in history to win four gold medals in a single Olympics.

Ledecky had to be very careful in the Olympics and afterwards due to her age and college eligibility but with all of that behind her the Standford student is now smashing records in the NCAA competitions.

As the current world record holder in three events, she is well on the way to being one of the most dominant swimmers in history.

8 Phelps dominates again
The most decorated athlete in Olympic history added to his incomprehensible haul in Rio.

Phelps added six medals this summer. His already impressive haul of Olympic medals is now totalling 28, including 23 gold.

No other athlete in any sport has more than nine gold medals at the Olympics. In his final race before what should be his retirement Phelps led the U.S. to victory in the 400-metre medley relay. This well and truly cemented his legacy of an all time great athlete.

7 Arnold Palmer passes away
For all the highs we have seen in 2016, we also saw some pretty big lows and the death of Arnold Palmer at the age of 87 was one of them.

Palmer was a seven-time major winner and had amassed 95 professional wins throughout his career. He was regarded by many as the greatest to ever play the game.

A hero to Tiger Woods, Palmer brought golf to the mainstream and became a household name to many people. He was a polarising figure for the golfing community and one that will forever be regarded as an all time great of the game.

6 Usain Bolt
The Jamaican did it again leaving the rest of the athletics world in his dust in Rio Bolt again did the triple winning the 100m, 200m and the 4x100m relay. The lightning Bolt was not quite at his absolute blitzing speed he seemed to toy with his opponents including flashing a perfectly timed smile at a camera during the heats of the 100m.

Although his competitors tried to push him in the heats they could do nothing to catch the man regarded as the fastest man in the world. With the wins Bolt moved into second behind Michael Phelps as the second greatest male Olympian of all time.

5 Conor McGregor conquers the world
The brash Irishman showed the world in 2016 that he is a force to be reckoned with inside the UFC octagon. Even with a shock loss to Nate Diaz earlier in the year, McGregor came back strong, knocking off who many believed at the time as the greatest pound for pound fighter in the UFC in Jose Aldo (before the Diaz battles).

McGregor is a money making machine for the UFC and with his trash talking and in ring skills being up there as one of the best his 2016 will go down as one of the best of any fighter ever.

4. Muhammad Ali passes away
June 3 2016 the world lost the greatest of all time,. Muhammad Ali fought one battle too many and passed away from a respiratory illness that ultimately caused septic shock he was 74 years of age.

The news of Ali’s death sent shock waves all over the world despite his ongoing health battles.

Ali was a polarising figure not just within the boxing community but the sports and global community as a whole, from his activism in the 60s which ultimately cost him his world heavyweight title to his sharp and witty tongue before and after fights.

Ali had a number of brutal and memorable clashes in his boxing career and his battles with George Forman and Joe Frazier will be remembered for years to

3 Cleveland Cavaliers win NBA championship
How can a team led by LeBron James go into an NBA finals as the underdogs? Quite easily when they are facing a team that just broke every known record in the NBA on their way to a 73-9 regular season and a dominating display in the Western Conference finals.

The Cleveland Cavaliers and the Golden State Warriors again renewed their rivalry from 2015 to face off against one another for the major prize in the NBA.

This time though things were different LeBron had a bit more help with both Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love being fully healthy. Love did miss a game or two with a concussion but he was pretty much fully healthy.

After game one and two it looked like the Warriors would again get the better of the Cavaliers absolutely decimating the Cavaliers in the first two games to take a 2-0 lead at home.

The Cavaliers would bounce back in game three taking the win at home but again the Warriors would get revenge in Cleveland and take a 3-1 lead. And something would happen…

Draymond Green and LeBron James got involved in a scuffle which would end with Draymond appearing to make contact with LeBron James below the belt – the second time in the playoffs Draymond would be looked at for that sort of indiscretion.

The NBA didn’t stand for it and banned Draymond for Game 5. Without their leader in the building the Warriors would have to rely on Unanimous MVP Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson to get them the series win but an all-time classic performance from LeBron James and Kyrie Irving gave the Cavaliers the win and forced game 6.

Game 6 would see the return of Draymond Green but again LeBron James would prove to the Warriors and the basketball world that he is the best player in the game having his second consecutive game with 41 points and leading the Cavaliers to a game 6 win and forcing a game 7.

Game 7 would be history in the making with the Cavaliers taking the win and becoming the first team in NBA history to win from 3-1 down.

A scrappy final two minutes of game 7 saw a game winning shot from Kyrie Irving, a defensive stop from Kevin Love (who had been criticised all year for his defence) and a block that will go down as one of the greatest plays in the history of the NBA from LeBron James.

The Cleveland Cavaliers had done what they had never done in their history taking home a championship in what was also the first title in Cleveland for 52 years and giving LeBron James the championship for his home state team that he had promised to deliver when he said he was coming back.

2 Chicago Cubs win MLB championships
Back to the Future was oh so close.

Just one year separated the movie blockbuster and fact when the Chicago Cubs broke a 108-year drought to take home the World Series from another team chasing draught breaking glory in the Cleveland Indians.

Much like the NBA finals only flipped, the Cleveland Indians were leading 3-1 in the World series before the Cubs came back to take the game in extra innings of game 7 to hoist the trophy and break the curse of the Billy Goat.

Featuring NL MVP Kris Bryant, slugging first baseman Anthony Rizzo, dynamic young infielder Javier Baez and baseball’s best rotation – fronted by veteran ace Jon Lester – the Cubs became heroes to Chicago by bringing the championship home.

The victory parade for Chicago had over 5 million people more than the entire city proving just how big the victory for the Cubbies really was.

Game 7 was one for the ages with the Cubs taking an early lead before the Indians came back to tie it late in the ninth, in the 10th Chicago would take an 8-6 lead and eventually prevailed 8-7 after a single from the Indians.

The win was the first 3-1 world series win since 1985 and the first since 1979 where a team had to win the sixth and seventh game away from home.

1 Leicester city win EPL
Who else could I have as number 1 the underdog of underdogs Leicester city became EPL champions for the first time in history?

In over 140 years the team had only ever been runners up in the top flight Premier league competition (back in 1929). At now-famous 5,000-1 preseason odds, Leicester City’s 2015-16 English Premier League title should have been impossible. With only five other teams having won a title since the EPL era started they were always going to be overlooked, even in the dying weeks of the competition many expected them to falter but the Foxes held on to stay on top of the table and take home the EPL crown.

Leicester City summed up exactly how 2016 was for a sporting year with underdogs winning in a number of major sporting competitions and showing the bigger sides that all the money in the world doesn’t beat a team with a great game plan and a desire to win.

So there you have it my top 15 sports stories some good some bad and some that we never could have expected, have I forgotten any or should some be in a different spot? Let me know in the comments below.

You can follow Sam on Twitter @postgamesport